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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130250">Copper Webbing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotABlogAKhaleesi/pseuds/NotABlogAKhaleesi'>NotABlogAKhaleesi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Horror, One Shot, Original Fiction, Survival Horror</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:34:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,731</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotABlogAKhaleesi/pseuds/NotABlogAKhaleesi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The final video diary of the last human alive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Copper Webbing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Welcome! This is my first work on AO3 since I took down all the old ones. This is an original horror I wrote and I hope that you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Listen good, I need you to, both our lives rely on it. I can't…. I can’t stress this enough, you need to listen to me. My name is Alice, I’m from the old haven,” The young voice drifted into a sigh, recalling a home it could never go back to. “The old haven is gone, or… maybe it was never here. I don't know.”</p><p>The young woman, Alice, looked down, her short hair falling against her forehead, matted with dirt and grime. </p><p>“It was never safe,” Her eyes held an emotion unfamiliar, but it could be felt deep in your bones, a feral kind of feeling lost to time. “I went there with my family after the electricity was cut, my brother, he…. he didn’t make the journey.”</p><p>Relief crept into her voice, like she was glad he didn’t have to live through whatever happened at the old haven. </p><p>“Whatever those things outside are-” She was cut off by a loud clang, almost as if whatever was on the other side of that heavy iron door behind her wanted to add suspense. Her eyes shut quickly and she mouthed something before looking back up into the camera.</p><p>“I….I’m sorry, I don’t have much time. Just listen to me.”</p><p>She paused, mouthing again. “ I was always afraid of being alone, even as a kid before all this. But,” She folded in on herself, looking small in the oversized wasteland jacket that was draped across her frame. “Now, I’m afraid of not being alone. Afraid of thinking I’m alone while something else is with me. I’m afraid of not knowing how surrounded I am while thinking I’m safe.”</p><p>Another clang flowed through the speakers and the door behind her shuddered from the assault. She made a sound in the back of her throat, one filled with feral desperation. When she looked back up into the camera her eyes were alight with something that could be compared to a cornered beast.</p><p>“No matter where we go or what we do, we are never alone,” The words flowed off her tongue slowly, like she was explaining something to a child. “Don’t move, they’ll know, don’t flinch, and don’t be afraid, they’ll smell it on you.”</p><p>She smiled casually but there was force in her eyes, “They can’t know that you know. And they will know if you act strange. Just breath for now. </p><p>The tone of her voice wasn’t quite commanding, but it was insistent. “In and out. You’re doing great.” She reassured, her well trained smile never once faltering “ I need you to glance around,  slowly.”</p><p>She took a breath like just speaking was exhausting.</p><p>“Do you see anything? I need you to be sure. It won’t be in the open, just check for subtle things. If you see it, don’t panic, just breath.” After a pause, she added, “They don’t have many senses, just emotion. If they feel you panicking they’ll know. Just smile and nod and breath.”</p><p>“We’re old friends now aren’t we? If not, just pretend we are.” She nodded encouragingly, “Pretend you used to know me, and now you’re getting to know me again. Take every little detail in.”</p><p>“They won’t be noticeable at first, just little shadows in the corners of your eyes. They’ll hide if you look at them directly so try and just look like you don’t notice them. Don’t worry, it gets easier to pretend you don’t see them after a while.” She punctuated with a laugh like she’d just told a joke.</p><p>“They know I’m here, I think,” She looked thoughtful and closed her eyes as another clang sounded,” They can smell it on me, smell that I know that they’re around me.”</p><p>“There are ways of shutting them out, listen closely because I can’t repeat it and you can’t hear it more than once or you’ll think about it constantly. Hear my words and smile and log them into the farthest corner of your mind. Iron works well, but copper or bronze is better, if you can find jewelry stores see if you can find them there, it’ll be difficult to find but it’s the best bet. Old pages work too, but only if you’ve written on them,” She held up her hand and in it was a small plain notebook with pages ripped out and stuffed back in. “It's the memories I think, they don’t like the feeling of the past near them.”</p><p>“If you can, find herbs, lots of them. Go to grocery stores and dig through their dried spices until you have at least one of each. Find the seeds for them too, look in the garden section and pick up every herb you can find.” She thought for a minute, “Get vegetable seeds too, as many as you can carry. They won’t protect you, but starvation kills just as easily as they can.”</p><p>“If you can find them, you probably can, use coins but use them with caution. They like silver  coins, so be sure to wrap them in some old pages or something like an old baby blanket to hide them so they won't follow you.”</p><p>She fidgeted with the collar of her jacket, “Do you see this? This belonged to my brother, I was the only one who saw him go down, I saw the thing that took him down. I pretended I didn’t see it and I got closer. I could smell the rotting teeth in its mouth while it stole the air from his lungs. I held him while he died, while that fucking thing sat on his chest.”</p><p>Her smile faltered for a moment and a groan sounded behind the door. The sound was like crunching metal and broken bones slick with blood. It was sick and grotesque and could send a wave of nausea through the speakers.</p><p>She sighed a bit before bursting into a strained grin, “I think I may have forgotten, I don’t know what I forget but my memory is gone. It’s…. It’s like nothing makes sense. The details don’t fit together any more.”</p><p>“It’s like my mind didn’t want to see so it’s forcing the memories together to make up for it.”</p><p>She let out a small hum, eyes closed, and then she started mouthing those words again. She was counting, always making it to three before stopping. </p><p>“I’ve made about a thousand of these recordings, leaving them all over so there’s something out there to offer hope against them. I have a book too, they can’t read our language or something, they never bother with the notebook in the past when I’ve been cornered.”</p><p>She had a wistful look again, her voice turning light and airy, “It’ll be on me, so if you find me at least you’ll learn something.”</p><p>“I always wanted to be strong. Do you remember being a child and seeing zombie movies and thinking of how amazing it would be to fight and survive like that? I used to dream like that, I regret it now. I think that maybe they heard all my wishes, maybe that’s why they’ve come after us all. I wish I could take back all those little daydreams, I wish it hadn’t been me who’d brought the world down with me.”</p><p>A frown crept onto her lips, and then she was grinning, her eyes glossy and looking right into the camera. </p><p>“I think I might be it by now, I must be.” Her smile was sad, but never fading, “I haven’t seen another person in a while, not since old haven went down. That was forever ago, I’ve been wandering since. I’m worried that I’m all that’s left of life. There aren’t any animals, I haven’t had meat in months. It’s hard, but I manage somehow. I have to.”</p><p>“I live near the old settlement, Amo, the one where everyone started disappearing the first time. I figured it had to have been wiped out. I was right. There was a little house near the center of the settlement, must have been some kind of meeting place. It had good security, took me half of the day to disable locks and get into the basement.”</p><p>“I did my best to make it safe, set up little things around, just in case. I have some old wire strung out across the trees, it’s copper. Found it in some electrical store and it took me days to strip all the rubber off of them. They won’t kill them, as far as I know nothing can. It slows them down though. I made webs out of them in between the trees on the outskirts of the settlement. It’s not a whole bunch of land, I needed to conserve as much as I could, so it’s just enough land to farm on along with a handful of houses. I’d made that decision back when I was still hopeful.”</p><p>“I thought I was making a safe place for more survivors, we could survive together. The houses are still empty, I picked them clean of anything that was worth it on the first day. I can’t take the webbing down and move it closer to that center house with the basement I’d holed up in, it was too risky. More and more I kept finding the webbing coated with some kind of leather.” Alice made a face, “It smelled like someone had set sewage on fire, it’s hard to even describe it. I’m guessing it’s their skin or something like that, their hides maybe. I kept finding it burnt into the copper and I’d have to take the time cleaning it off with a knife it was so charred into the wiring. I couldn’t stomach being out there near it for too long so I had to venture out wearing all the iron jewelry I could find and carrying pennies in my pockets to keep them away. I found a respirator, that made things easier.”</p><p>“Taking down the wiring and putting it back up closer to home would take too long, the second I’d given an opening and they’d be infesting the place.” She looking like she was joking, but her tone said otherwise. “That charred leather stuff makes for good fertilizer though, I found that out by accident after I’d accidentally dropped a bit of scraps into the hole I’d been tossing the leather into on my way to the compost pile. A week later the seeds from the scraps took root and grew like crazy. I ate the cucumbers that came off the vine, they were the size of my forearm and looked and smelled fine. I didn't have too much to lose so I ate them. When I turned out fine I started writing down theories in my book, maybe the copper took off whatever pollutants those things carried, or maybe eating people’s souls meant you were full of nutrients?”</p><p>“I saw one of the webs full of the leather, it was coating nearly the whole thing and I didn’t even think about it, I just went to work cleaning it out and tossing it into the bucket I’d brought.”</p><p>Her resolve wavered, “I felt it before I saw it. You know the feeling when you have to sneeze but can’t? The way your lungs squeeze and the back of your throat feels too tight and all the hair on your body is standing at attention. That’s what it felt like. I’d already cleared one of the wires, so I just tried to look busy and keep working, not letting it know I knew. I felt it’s hands inching closer and I felt like a kid again, rushing out of rooms after turning off the light so the ghosts couldn’t get me. I had some tin snips with me, so I cut the wire at both ends. I tried to look casual but I was scared shitless. I wrapped it around my throat and my chest, I’d seen the way that thing sat on my brother’s chest, part of it wrapped around his neck while he struggled.”</p><p>“I walked back to the basement, and I climbed down the steps until I got to the main door. I’d put the iron one in as an extra precaution, the first door at the top of the stairs I’d hung herbs around, and the little mat in front of it I’d soaked in herb water and then let dry. It wasn’t enough.” Her smile was almost genuine, it was small but thoughtful. “ I’ve been down here for a few days now, they haven’t gotten in yet, but the sizzling of their skin against the iron has stopped every time they hit it, so they must have built up a layer of leather, I can smell it that’s for damn sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s only a matter of time now, they’ll be in here any minute, or maybe tomorrow. It’s more than one, it’s gotta be. I hope that there’s someone left, something alive to see this and to not repeat my mistakes. I have food to last at least another week or so, nothing really goes bad down here, it’s too cold, but it wouldn’t really matter, if you’re hungry enough you’ll eat anything. I think they might be like me out there, I’m the last morsel left, they’re fighting like they’re starving. I can’t hate them at this point, hunger makes you desperate. I have half a mind to open the door right now and just let them in, it would be a kindness, they’d feast on my soul after who knows how long being hungry. I think I’m ready for them.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, if you’re worried at all, I’m not suicidal, and I don’t want to die, but maybe giving my life in order to prolong theirs would be a kind enough act that I’ll make it into heaven, if that place is even safe from these things.”</p><p>“I guess this is goodbye, at least until they find you too. I hope when I get to whatever afterlife there is I’ll be recognized. Someone will see me and tell me how they found the tapes I left.”</p><p>She was looking into the camera again, her eyes gentle and knowing, “I hope that I see you soon, I don’t want you to suffer alone too long, people go crazy from stuff like that. If you see me up there or down below or wherever it is we’re going, tell me how you saw this tape, how you found what was left of my sanctuary. If my body is there, or my bones, or my jacket, or whatever is left, put it up high, on a hill if you can.” She pointed a finger at the camera, “I don’t want to be rotting in a basement, I want my jacket or my skull or whatever you found to rot in the sun. Let me dissolve into the ground. I want my jacket bleached white, maybe you can use it as a flag. Maybe the memories that I left in the threads will be enough to protect you. I’d like that, to be able to do more for you, to be able to keep you safe. My brother died in this jacket and I will too, hopefully all that grief and love and every little bit of us that were left behind will keep those things away from you.”</p><p>“My name is Alice Porter, I was born in Georgia, I was twenty-four when the world fell, I watched my brother die, I watched my family get picked away one by one, I’m the last of the Porter’s, maybe the last of anyone, I want to keep you safe, I can’t be saved, I’ll see you so-”</p><p>The door groaned behind her, screeching as the bolts snapped, a clang echoing as it hit the cement floor. </p><p>She didn’t scream, didn’t move, she just started crying, letting every bit of pain she had kept bottled up for so long drown her. A shriek echoed behind her, reverberating and repeating. It wasn’t human, it wasn’t anything, just an animalistic sound that meant goodbye. She went easily, slumping into her cot, and closing her eyes, tears still flowing freely. Her mouth hangs open, bits of grey smoke passing her lips and dissipating in the cold air. </p><p>The camera falls, and the video stops.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed because this is the first horror piece I've ever written.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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